We have a global economy that has been fed $15Trillion in quantitive easing, $10Trillion in bonds and the lowest inflation rates for 5000 years. This market is so distorted now that the computer algorithms are mercilessly punishing human greed by forcing massive technical corrections.

Blame the computers all you like, but also acknowledge that the 10 years of distorted markets due to trillions spent on quantitive easing has created a perfect storm where the AI of the computers becomes ruthless with the greed of the humans.

A prediction. On the basis of the sluggish Auckland rental market, the end of the Auckland property bubble could be sooner rather than later. (I’m picking October 2017, a month or two after the 2017 general election.) The ‘correction’ will come when enough people who have bought in Auckland for capital gain realise that they will have to sell soon, or risk the consequences.

Unions can expose the hypocrisy of employers demanding the right to import labour while paying a pittance to their staff. But ultimately, the only effective way to turn the situation around is to reunionise the sectors of the workforce that have lost union protection and force the bosses to pay.

The key question of Robertson’s FoW inquiry has been: What must Labour do to guarantee employers a steady supply of productive workers as New Zealand and the rest of the world enters the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution”?

Most NZers have Kiwisaver now, which means the meltdown impacts you if your money is invested in the stock market. The only Kiwisaver option you can choose which removes you from the stock market altogether is opting for the cash rate. You can do this on your banks website.

What does all of this mean? It means the massive money printing programs only stalled the inevitable corrections to the bubbles that money has created. Add in the impacts of climate change and we have all the ingredients for an economic depression.

My most recent chart (New Zealand Income Shares 2013/14, 21 October) in my Chart for this Weekseries on Evening Report shows the four-way division of income in New Zealand for the year ended March 2014. The data is from the National Accounts of New Zealand has been straightened out by revealing the full extent of the public shares.